Paleontology is the study of ancient plants and animals based on the fossil record, evidence of their existence preserved in rocks.
This includes the study of body fossils, tracks, burrows, cast off parts, fossilized feces, and chemical residues.
Paleontology overlaps to some extent with geology, the study of rocks and rock formations, and with botany, biology, zoology, and ecology, fields concerned with living creatures and how they interact.

The primary economic importance of paleontology lies in the use of fossils to determine the age and nature of the rocks that contain them or the layers above or below. This information is very important to the mining industries and especially to the petroleum industry.

Fossils were known by primitive man and were sometimes identified correctly as the remains of ancient lifeforms. The organized study of paleontology dates from the late 18th century.